


The Huntsman, His Bride and Her Sister

by Liviania



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Жар-птица и Василиса-царевна | The Firebird and Princess Vasilisa, Иван-царевич и серый волк | Tsarevitch Ivan and the Fire Bird and the Gray Wolf
Genre: F/M, POV Minor Character, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-05-15
Packaged: 2018-03-30 15:29:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3941965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liviania/pseuds/Liviania
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All tales are one tale.</p><p>Vasilisa the Beautiful married the hunstman, and Helen the Beautiful married Ivan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Huntsman, His Bride and Her Sister

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Morbane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morbane/gifts).



Dolmat did not become a Tsar through the line of his father.  He became a Tsar when he was found worthy, immersed in boiling water without harm to a hair on his head.  The Tsar before him wasn't so lucky.

The Tsarina Vasilisa married Dolmat happily, for she'd arranged the entire sordid affair.  There was none more golden than her, more fair, and she'd long understood the way men looked at her.  She'd thus arranged her own marriage very neatly.

The marriage of her sister was harder to arrange.  Helen was beautiful too.  There are those who said she was more beautiful than her older sister, and those who said she was less.  Dolmat did not see that it mattered much, which was the most beautiful woman and which was the second most.  Did such a distinction really matter?  He'd asked Vasilisa once.  She'd stroked his cheek softly, running her white hand along his beard.  "That's why I chose you, my darling."

Thus, the arrival of Ivan, a prince from the east, was rather fortunate.

The Tsar and Tsarina looked at the boy, his hands clasped in shackles and resting on a rather fearsome looking wolf.  He could not see them, where they peered through a spy hole.

"He has no honor," muttered Dolmat.

"He doesn't seem that bright, either."

"Oh?"

"That is no ordinary wolf," Vasilisa replied.  "Such a being as the gray wolf would have warned the boy not to touch the cage.  He is a fool."

"I shall throw him in the dungeon, then.  Let's hope his father doesn't start a war to get the thief back."

"No," said Vasilisa.  Her gaze remained steady on the wolf.  "The wolf is a good man.  And the boy is a boy.  He is silly and flightly and likes shiny things, but he must have a good heart to earn such companionship.  My sister and the wolf together, they could whip him into shape, make him a Tsar to remember."

"So you want me to ask the boy to steal your sister in return for trying to steal my firebird?"

"No, of course not."

"Then what do you want me to do, dear?"

"I want you to send him to steal the golden horse.  Think more subtly.  Afton will send him to steal my sister, for that greedy old man wants her for himself."

"You think the boy can manage such a plan?"

"Not at all.  But the wolf - he can do it.  A stalwart soul like that, he'll see the boy through."

Dolmat looked at the boy skeptically.  He'd never quite learned to like those who were born to power.

"He can earn it, this way," she said.  His wife knew him so well.  How wonderful that so many men before him had missed that mind, or one of them might've had her instead.

"What's in it for the wolf?" he asked her.

"That wolf used to be a man, and can be a man again.  He just has to teach the boy to listen to what he says."

Dolmat trusted his wife, but it all sounded a bit much to him.  However, he knew if he hadn't listened to her and stepped into that boiling bath, things would not have turned out so well.

"The golden horse, then," he said, and left the spy hole to enter the room where the boy was being held.  He would chastise him, and then offer him a way out.

"The gray wolf, the firebird, the golden horse, and my sister," Vasilisa whispered.  She looked forward to her sister's wedding; she expected it would be rather eventful.  Her own had been so.


End file.
